Heaven Sent by Clea Hantman Read Free Book Online Page A

it. You pour it in a bowl, you pour some milk over it, and you eat it. Voilà,” and with that he turned and pushed his cart in the opposite direction, laughing.
    Era was thrilled. “Yippee! No cooking! Let’s get lots of these boxes. And then we must find the milk. Hooray, I will not starve! I will eat Fruity O’s and Choco-Stars.”
    Polly wasn’t sure we could survive on cereal alone, so we pushed on.
    We picked up some hard, frozen boxes in the aisle marked Frozen Food. And we loaded up on colorful cans and more boxes in another aisle, marked Ethnic Foods. All the boxes had pretty pictures on them, and—luckily—what appeared to be directions on how to cook them.
    Polly and Era seemed very happy with themselves, but I wasn’t satisfied yet. We’d traveled a really long way to earth—we might as well dine on the best it had to offer. We just needed to find out what that was.
    As we turned into the last aisle, I spotted those three very pretty, very snotty back-row girls from bio. They were huddled together, whispering. Didn’t they ever do anything else? That uncomfortable feeling came back over me, and I thought about walking away, but then I remembered who I was. I decided to be the bigger gal and to ignore the fact that beingnear these girls was making my heart beat just a little faster than usual. Maybe we’d just gotten off on the wrong foot. I walked straight up to them and said, “Hello. I’m taking a poll for the, um, the government of Georgia?” Governments did polls, right? “What is your most favorite food?” Hey, maybe I could get some real info from these chicks.
    The one with the raven-colored stripes in her hair said, “Anchovies. Aisle six.”
    The one with the pale porcelain skin said, “Sardines. Aisle six.”
    And the one with the cold black eyes said, “Pickled pigs’ feet. Aisle ten.”
    None of them said it with much of a smile. I thanked them; they winked at me; I suffered through a shiver down my spine. We started to walk away, but just before we turned the corner, Era pitched forward with a jolt, landing flat on her stomach in the middle of the aisle. Peals of laughter rang out from the girls behind us. I turned to throw a nasty look their way for being so rude, but even though their laughter was still echoing through the aisle, the girls themselves were nowhere to be seen. That’s when I noticed that my heart was pounding again, this time louder and faster than before. I let out a deep breath and headed toward my sister.
    “It’s those shoes,” Polly chided Era as she pulled her up off the ground.
    “I swear, it wasn’t,” Era said, dusting off herclothes and looking confused and embarrassed. “One minute I was just walking, and the next minute I simply lost my balance.”
    “It’s called tripping,” Polly said dryly. “On your shoes.”
    After helping Era up and combing the whole store, we had amassed quite a bit of food. I was ready to leave. Polly got in the longest line. “This one is shorter,” I said, moving to the one next to it.
    “No, it’s not,” she replied, a little out of breath.
    “Clearly it is. C’mon, I wanna get home and play with that microwave thing.”
    “This line is fine. We’re staying,” she said emphatically.
    “Ohhh, candy bars. I want some of these, okay, Polly?” asked Era.
    “Sure, go ahead.” Era grabbed like twenty of them and placed them in the cart.
    When we finally got up to the front of the line, the mortal who put our food in the bags commented on our choices. “Dude, what’s with all the cereal? You girls having a slumber party?” And then he laughedat his joke. I smiled to be polite, but I didn’t get why he thought his joke was so funny.
    “Whoa, do you girls really eat this stuff? Pickled pigs’ feet? Oh, man, that’s gross. Look at that. That’s so very gross. I am so glad I’m a vegetarian.”
    “Me too,” said Polly, very quietly. She didn’t even look up when she said it.
    “Hey, you’re in my